Wednesday September 22nd, 2004 Trade Show Life

Life at a trade show:

I’m at the computer conference in San Francisco at the South Hall of the Moscone Conference Center on 3rd Street and Howard Street. I’ve been standing at a small booth at the back of the conference center, which is located two floors below street level. It’s about 1:30 PM on Wednesday September 22nd and I’m bored and my left leg hurts from an injury sustained over the Labor Day weekend. I’ve aggravated the injury by walking excessively—a substitute for the morning run that I’ve not done since Sunday when the injury occurred. Compounding the agony is the long stretch of standing on concrete with only rubber-soled shoes and the thinnest of carpet between bare feet and cement. I refuse to sit in the bar-stool type chair provided with the exhibit booth we’ve rented for this event—sitting makes the time drag and standing gives me the ability to keep moving, which helps assuage the boredom.

This could read like a Samuel Beckett novel and in many ways standing for three hours in an exhibition hall with very few people showing any interest in what you are exhibiting can be just as absurd. Attendee walks up to the booth, looks intently at the first sign on our back wall, then looks intently at second sign. “Can I interest you in my product,” I say. “No, I’m just looking,” he says. “What I really would like is to have some of the candy you have in that bowl behind you.” I say, “sure,” offering him the bowl of finger size candy bars. He studies the bowl intently first picking one candy, then another, then another, fearful of making the wrong choice. “Take more than one,” I encourage. He beams, “thanks, that makes it easier.” He takes a handful and scurries off, immensely pleased with himself.

Each visitor is similar, though some decline the candy preferring instead the giveaway pen or the sunglass holder each marked with the company’s logo. I figure either way I’ve scored. With the candy, I’ve created an indebtedness in the recipient while with the other giveaways the recipients become walking billboards for the company’s name. The marketing term is branding—what ranchers do to their livestock. Some of those who spend a few seconds with me—most encounters all take place in under a minute—listen attentively to my description, ask a polite question, then take their giveaway, thank me and leave.

There is one visitor who came to the booth that stood out and I called him the power attendee. I watched him move from booth to booth as he approached my section of the exhibit hall. His eyes were in constant movement taking in everything around him even as he asked a question and listened to the answer. The speaker is obviously dismayed, as the listener seems to be oblivious of what the speaker is saying—too distracted to take in the information being proffered. But I go through the motions trying to imbue my pitch with something that will draw him in. But you can see he’s intent on me getting through my pitch as quickly as possible. I comply. He senses the silence I fall into after saying my piece. It takes him a second to recognize that I’ve stopped speaking. He provides a perfunctory smile, shakes my hand, and then is away. Like a Tourette's syndrome sufferer, he has to perform this ritual at each booth in the hall, driven by a nervous tic, he can’t control.

I’m getting too old for this shit. So I take a Hershey’s candy bar—the small bar in the gold package with the almond inside. I’m good for the rest of the afternoon.